Windows 10 Technical Preview, hands-on

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So, I installed Windows 10 Technical Preview. Actually, I was feeling so brave (foolhardy?) that I upgraded my main Windows 8.1 installation to Windows 10. The good news: The upgrade process went very smoothly indeed. The bad news: Well, except for a few small interface quirks, there doesn’t seem to be much bad news. Read on for my early hands-on impressions of Windows 10 Technical Preview — and a video of Windows 10 Technical Preview running on my multi-monitor desktop PC.

If you can’t watch this hands-on video, there are lots of screenshots below.

Upgrading from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10

First up, the upgrade process was very simple. I downloaded and installed Windows 10 Technical Preview, burnt it to a USB thumb drive, and then ran setup.exe from within Windows 8.1. I followed the on-screen prompts and kept all of my “settings, personal files, and apps” when given the option. After that, it was just a matter of hitting Next until the install completed. The upgrade took about 10-15 minutes (on a decent SSD).

So far I haven’t noticed any obvious issues (crashing bugs, faulty drivers) — but I haven’t done much more than run Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and a few games (Dota 2). Considering the Desktop side of Windows 10 is basically just Windows 8 (which in turn is essentially just Windows 7), everything should just work.

Using Windows 10 Technical Preview

For the most part, if you’ve been using Windows 8 on a mouse-and-keyboard desktop PC for a while, Windows 10 Technical Preview will feel very familiar. Here are the new changes/features that immediately stood out:

Windows 10 looks a lot sharper. The new 1-pixel borders on app windows, along with the drop shadow, really does make the Windows 10 Desktop look rather smart.

The new Alt-Tab view is horrible. I’ve always hated Microsoft’s attempts to re-work the Alt-Tab app switcher into something more visual. The new Alt-Tab view in Windows 10 is pretty horrendous (picture below). Maybe it’ll be better once I get used to it — but if you’re used to a neat line of thumbnails that you can cycle through, you’re in for a shock.

Snapping is indeed much improved. In Windows 10 Technical Preview you have many more ways of snapping apps than in Windows 8. You can now snap left and right, and left and right of the middle divider on a multi-monitor setup. You can also snap in a top or bottom corner. When you snap an app, if you have other apps minimized, a new interface pops up asking if you want to snap another app into the remaining gap. It’s kind of cool. Very much a throwback to the “tile view” of yesteryear.

The Start menu is back. Personally I don’t use the Start menu much (I prefer to pin my apps to the taskbar), but yes, the Start menu is back in Windows 10 — and yes, you can remove all of the live tiles if you want. (Funnily enough, after removing all of the live tiles, I don’t know how to put them back.)

Windows 10 Technical Preview screenshots

Here’s a selection of screenshots from my Windows 10 Technical Preview adventures thus far. They mostly accompany the video; where you might not be able to see the detail in the video, I’ve provided a full-res screenshot below.

Windows 10 Technical Preview: The new Alt-Tab switcher

Windows 10 Technical Preview, Chrome. You can see the red X button is designed for the wider border of Windows 8, and thus it overhangs a bit in Windows 10

Windows 10 Technical Preview Start menu – without any live tiles

Windows 10 Technical Preview, snap helper UI thing

Windows 10 Technical Preview, improved app snapping

And finally, a very intimidating screenshot indeed: The new virtual desktops feature, on a multi-monitor Windows 10 Technical Preview setup. You will want to click this image to zoom in, to marvel at the power-userness of it all.

This is just the tip of the Windows 10 iceberg. The Technical Preview appears to be missing a lot of features, such as Cortana and the Notifications tray. There are also a lot of new configuration options to play around with — which is what I’m going to do now. I’ll keep this post updated as my exploration of Windows 10 Technical Preview progresses.

Tagged In

Installing this later tonight, doubtful but i’m going to see the performance difference between it and 8.1.

VirtualMark

After watching the video, I have to say that Windows 10 is a lot more improved than I thought. It’s way better for desktop users, really this is what Windows 8 should have been.

The virtual desktops could come in useful if you were running out of taskbar space. But I wonder how well it works for full screen apps like a game? Could you have a game running on one desktop, pause it and use a program on another desktop?

The interface actually looks pretty slick, with everything behaving how you’d expect. Fair play. Although I’m surprised that you can’t drag and drop between desktops, perhaps they’ll add that in an update.

Joel Detrow

It probably depends on the game. Windowed games should work with multiple desktops just fine, including borderless windows.

klepp0906

So unless your using 1 gpu, no :p

Meltrust

Is this the return of THE king??

J. Andrew Lanz-O’Brien

Literally features KDE had a decade ago.

Doucherson

…but it actually works.

Joel Detrow

Yeah? Didn’t help. Windows is still the #1 desktop OS for the average consumer. Now it’s adding long-sought power-user features and you seem to be bashing them for taking too long. Such discouraging words.

Dozerman

<>
FINALLY!!! I’ve been waiting for this for ages!

The new explorer *still* doesn’t have tabs, though, which annoys me. One of the best things about using alternative filebrowsers is how easy it is to copy from one tab into another.

Also, why do you have your taskbar on the righthand side? That would annoy the shit out of me!

Just personal preference, I guess. I like using my right-hand monitor as a launcher/admin/etc monitor — and left monitor is dedicated to whatever I’m working on. If I put the taskbar on the left, it just eats into the pixels that I have available for whatever I’m working on.

Antoine Talbot

FYI, You can already (Windows 7 & 8) snap apps on multi monitor setup on any side-edge you want, you just can’t do it with the mouse for the monitor-shared edge. Use Window-Key + left/right arrows to switch snapping from an edge to another or to fullscreen with the up key. Windows-Key + Down also step down all the way from full screen, to window, to minimized.

VirtualMark

Yeah I thought the taskbar was on the wrong side too! The start button belongs on the left.

meddle0ne

OK Sebastian, it may be the cognac and wine speaking, but I’m installing this on my daily driver PC after reading your review. I hope you haven’t led me down a dark, dark, path….

Denver Catboy

The further on the edge, the higher the intensity. ;D

CSB

I installed it tonight in Hyper-V on my Windows 8 system. It sync’d my settings after a few minutes I got my wallpaper and apps and I forgot that I was in Windows 10. It isn’t radically different from Windows 8. I feel like people that have been resisting Windows 8 are still going to experience some shock when they migrate from Windows 7, but hey, maybe a start menu really does make all the difference in the world.

Lodmot

I love Windows 10 so far. ^^
I am really digging those live tiles in the start menu most of all. I’ve been using the Facebook App, the Mail App and the other modern apps MUCH more frequently now that they’re windowed. I really hope Microsoft keeps the start menu just the way it is (with bug fixes and a bit more polish of course), because it works just the way I want it to.

I may be nuts but I’d like to be able to put the live tiles ON my desktop.

This does read like it should be an update to Windows 8. I understand that they want to distance themselves from W8 from a branding viewpoint but it’ll be really unfair to Windows 8 guinea pigs if they don’t have a cheap/free upgrade path.

The previews are always free — and often don’t need a valid Windows 7/8/etc license key to install them. But they expire (April 2015 at the moment, but that might change). After that, you need to buy a key and install the next version (the next preview build, the RTM, etc.)

Mr Moo

It looks like MS are sticking to their usual patterns, and by that i mean windows 10 looks like it is a pleasure to use. Iv said this before and i will say it again, MS have always done this, they make a terrible OS then a great one, then a terrible one, then a great one again.
Win98 – terrible. Win 98SE great (in its time). Win ME – terrible. Win 2000 – great. Win XP – terrible. Win XP (SP1) – great. Win Vista – terrible. Win 7 – great. Win 8 – terrible. Win 9 – ??
Just gotta hope windows 9 wasn’t the great one

DDG4005

Windows 98 was pretty good even before Second Edition was released. And Windows XP didn’t hit its stride until Service Pack 2 dropped in 2004 (three years after the OS’s release).

Mr Moo

XP was at least usable after sp1, remember all the problems they had before sp1 when people found all the backdoor loopholes which allowed advertising messages through, it was an absolute nightmare. Unless that was before sp2, I can’t remember, my memory’s a blur.

Avatar1337

How did you manage to get that many icons on the desktop already? All disordered…you sloppy sloppy Sebastian. Bad Sebastian BAD!

Hi suki, I see your post is over 5 months old, but the KASPERSKY issue has not been resolved I guess. I am also running Windows 10 Pro Technical Preview Evaluation copy Build 9926 and I still cannot enable Kaspersky Antivirus.
The funny thing is that when I launch Kaspersky’s control panel it looks as if protection is enabled.
Strange…

Asok Asus

“For the most part, if you’ve
been using Windows 8 on a mouse-and-keyboard desktop PC for a while,
Windows 10 Technical Preview will feel very familiar.”

Ruh, Roh ….

Cam Gordon

does anybody else feel like they actually like windows 8 better in some aspects and that the new start menu is actually inconvenient? I have spent year stripping down the start menu because i dont like it.. yet its back.. oh well ill still try win 10 and this is going to benefit a lot of users.

Jonathan Reed

You can strip your start menu down to almost nothing in 10

JW

Charms only works with touch in exactly the same way as 8.1. Installed this on my vaio tablet and it automatically gives me the start page and not start menu as default because its touch, this can be changed to use start menu in the same way desktop users that are used to windows 8.1 can change back to the start screen. Looks almost identical to 8.1 when installed on a touchscreen tablet/laptop. charms doesn’t work when using my mouse. Looking forward to the notifications panel making an appearance at some point.

Well hopefully they’ll fix it so Charms works with a mouse. I’m glad to hear the Start Menu can be turned off though.

Neos

Fission?

Jake Passafiume

After using for day I can tell you its 1000 times better than windows 8.1, windows actually makes sense now. Most of these features are from Mac os x but I will take them. Yes Microsoft applications with windows now instead of the full screen only.

Mike Anthony

“Windows 10 Technical Preview, Chrome. You can see the red X button is designed for the wider border of Windows 8, and thus it overhangs a bit in Windows 10”

I believe that’s actually a Chrome thing. It’s been like that since forever, but the Windows 10 1px border breaks it more. That’ll teach ya, Google!

POY

I just installed it on my Asus T100, working perfectly…

Prince Venky

can u suggest to microsoft for “AERO” desktop like windows 7& about performance speeds…

main feature is cloud
friendly, and and the division of “business” information from
“individual” information. –
logon to the domain keeps the business data separate from logon to the device.
Anyhow most clients aren’t mindful that it exists or how to change their logon.
its to a great degree confounded, also numerous desktops and how they would
interface. Little ponder it will take sooner or later to evaluate.

Please tell me they severed the local user account from needing to be an MS account in order to use the App store.

Freak Power

I tried it and it sucks. Still suffers from dual personality disorder. Microsoft needs to make separation from OS for Desktop and OS for Tablets/Phones. I really don’t want to see PC Settings and other Metro shit. Some apps cannot be uninstalled like Camera, Phone, Store. Whole interface has flat look and view which sucks too. So far i didn’t see anything pleasing about Windows 10 preview. Windows 7 rules….

I guess you’re okay with Windows keylogging everything and sending it to Microsoft? I’m not.

FireFox Bancroft

Can’t share files with the version of Skype it comes pre-installed with.

Kritix Choyce

I installed Windows 10 on a quad monitor PC. It works amazingly well and I have had ZERO issues. In fact, I play ArcheAge and I had more issues running that game full screen in DX11 with 8.1. With Win10 I have no problems doing that at all, and I have even noticed a small increase in my fps (+10). Needless to say, i’m pretty satisfied and sure that this will be the OS of my choice. I was getting tired of 7 and 8.1 and the issues I had whenever I tried to game.

I also compose electronic music with my PC and I have had no issues installing my DAW software, nor any of the drivers for my audio equipment.

Sandeep Kumar

I am seeing some performance issue with Windows 10 technical preview version and also my Microsoft wireless mouse not working (left click). It could be driver issue.

There was no issue with Windows 8.1 on my laptop. What is minimum hardware requirement for Windows 10 technical preview version and it is safe to install it?

Futilizer

When you installed it did it keep all of your programs?

Salmane

It looks like Microsoft will be able to get me to upgrade from Windows 7!

yellowcircle

Well, you don’t need to install it on your computer. Try it out for free in the cloud. Yellow Circle Inc. has Windows 10 Technical Preview image pre-built, along with 20 other operating systems. Best of all, everything is free at http://www.yellowcircle.net

Behzad

Windows 10 Only Brings Back The Start Menu Which In My Opinion Solves Only 30% The Issues , I Don’t Know If Microsoft Doesn’t get It Or Doesn’t Listen …. But The Problem With Windows 8 Was The Whole Idea It Was Made Upon It !!!

Apart From The Poor Quality Of The Windows 8/8.1/10 (Hardware & Software Support Issues , Lots of Missing or Removed Functions , Lots Of Incompetence & Incompatibility , Terribly Weak Search) ….
YOU SHOULD NEVER COMBINE TWO WORLDS (MOBILE & PC) IN ONE OPERATING SYSTEM !!!
It’s Been Sometime That Microsoft Started To Go On Apple’s Road (A SANE PERSON SHOULDN’T DO THAT !) But I Wonder Why They Don’t Learn Thier Good Ideas …

Apple Very Clearly says That “You should Build TWO Different OS For These Two Fundamentally Different Devices” ,And You Can Still Make Them Work in perfect Harmony And Sync Just As Apple Did !
See How Apple’s Products Use Differen OS And Work In Perfect Harmony ! , You Don’t Need to Create A Jakle & Hyde, A Fucking Frankenstein To Have A Solid And Harmonic Ecosystem of Devices !!!
You Don’t Need To Create One OS To Rule Them ALL !!! And It’s Just Wrong !!!

Apple’s Latest Mac OS X Release too Have Somehow tried to do what microsoft did with windows and it Back Fired too !

Ubuntu (The Most popular Linux Distro ) Since They Switched To Unity Interface They Too Had Similar Ideas To microsoft And Started Similar Movements Into Making The So-Beloved Linux PC OS Suitable For Mobile And Tablet Devices And As A Result They’ve Lost A Lot Of Their Users And Comunity To The Exactly Opposite (User-Friendly) Linux Mint OS …..
See!!! Even For Linux And Apple Whenever They Tried To Mix Things That Shouldn’t Be Mixed It BACK FIRED !!!!

So Microsoft Please Open Your Eyes And Ears And Mind :
1-Remove The Fucking Metro From Windows 10 Completely And Utterly….
2-Stop With The Whole One OS For All Device Yada Yada !!! If You Want To Sell Surface Tablets Then Go Make Real Tablets With Tablet OPERATING SYSTEMS Not The One You Stole From PC Users !!!

3-Start To Actually Listenning to Users And Stop Pushing Us Into Surrendering To Your Stupid Ideas And Your Incompetent Products And Your Abusive Behaviour With Us !!! Because It Ain’t Gonna Happen … Because Our Final Option Is Not Surrender It’s LINUX Just Like How Munich Kicked Your Ass Out of Their City We Will Kick Your Ass Out Of The PC !!!

Filnal Word : Windows 8/8.1/10 Metro And Whatever it Stood For Is Rubbish And Totally Wrong So If You Don’t Wanna Change Your Minds , Don’t Change Your Minds But We Ain’t Gonna Buy That Piece of Shit

I accidently installed this at work, and for all intents and purposes it’s working amazingly – only that I have two same-sized monitors, one being VGA and one a USB monitor, and multi-monitors is not working for me… Can anyone share some wisdom?
1440 * 900 Little Lenovo computer with Lenovo monitors, Intel HD graphics control panel does nothing, if I detect monitors, “Try to connect anyway on Mobile PC display/ VGA”

Kayt Rivermoon

I guess my question is, WHY does anyone WANT more than three or four things open on their desktop ? Last I looked we humans can only really concentrate on ONE thing at a time…and keep track of maybe two more before the brain crashes. It may Look cool and be technically feasible, but are things so much improved that you can actually RUN things like Adobe Photoshop and Adobe premiere at the same time and not stress your system ?

Connie Eastman Lewis

I installed windows 10 about a week ago. First couple of days it started right up….now, it takes several tries to get my lap top started. I am not real computer literate but it also feels slow…..anyone have any ideas why this may be happening? When I push the power button it starts, says “Acer” and under that it looks like it has an 8 (I upgraded from 8.1) screen turns black and then takes several more tries until it finally powers up. Would windows 8 still be running in the background?

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